The Game, Destiny Decided
by danAlwyn
Summary: Two men play a game for the ultimate prize, the life of someone who can change the world. Another writing exploration using Digimon characters


Disclaimer: I own none of the characters from the Digimon franchise. A/N: Just another one of my series involving characters from my own stories interacting with the digidestined briefly. Hope you enjoy! In a park, two men sit down to play a game. Nobody notices, but then, nobody ever does.  
  
Hikari Kamiya started laughing again. She knew that she should not have, but somehow she could not resist it. The look that Tai gave her reinforced her earlier conviction but the entire situation was so hilarious that she could not avoid laughing at it.  
"Well, you're not the one nursing a sore behind." Tai muttered rebelliously under his breath.  
"Or a sore ego." Kari responded, sitting down on the couch again. "Why don't you just admit that you can't do it."  
"Because I can, I'm just getting the hang of it. It's not too hard." Tai tried to get up again, and fell down again, hitting even harder. He said something at that point that he probably should not have.  
"Tai!" Kari held her hands up to her cheeks in mock horror. "Are you trying to corrupt your innocent little sister?"  
"Innocent? You're innocent. Hah! You're as innocent as"  
"Yes?" Kari asked innocently, fluttering her eyes at her suddenly embarrassed brother.  
"never mind. Anyway, if you don't get ready, we're going to be late."  
"You could just admit that you don't know how to use roller blades."  
"Never!" Tai declared spiritedly before hitting the ground again.  
"Whatever." Kari responded, rolling her eyes.  
  
If someone had walked by the two men in the park playing their game, they might have, if they had been able to actually look at the two of them, notice something. For instance, there seemed to be some confusion about what game they actually were playing. There was a table between the two of them, a chess board, but an experienced player would have noticed that the board seemed slightly too big, the pieces slightly too numerous, and in positions that simply had no explanation.  
A student of the fine art of observation would also have noticed that each man held a hand of cards, with some clearly placed down on the board between them, face up. Coming closer, that observer might have noticed that these were not playing cards, but resembled cards that some youths might be using for one of their fancy card games. One of the men was holding a dice cup, rattling dice rolling around inside.  
At this point the observer might have given up trying to make sense of the situation, but there was no observer. There never is.  
The blond haired man rolled the dice cup around, sending the rattling dice onto the board. Four six sided die rolled across the terrain, coming slowly to land. Three of them showed sixes.  
The fourth proudly displayed a nine.  
The bald man picked up the die showing a nine, and carefully counted all the other sides. He gave the blond man a look that spoke volumes, but said nothing.  
The game went on.  
  
"So what's taking Tai and Kari so long?" TK asked his brother, as they skated alongside Joe, who was having his own problems.  
"Tai probably can't roller blade, and doesn't want to admit it." Matt responded, keeping a hand on Joe.  
"You know it. Who suggested this anyway?"  
"Sora." Matt responded, and TK sighed.  
It was tradition. On the first Sunday of every month, one of the digidestined got to pick an activity for everybody to go out and do. Cody had taken them all to an extended Kendo practice, one on one with his grandfather. Yolei had taken them shopping through half of Ginza. Izzy had managed to get a guided tour of Tokyo University's Matter Research Lab. Tai had taken them to a baseball game, and Joe had managed to get them to spend a day volunteering at the local hospital. Sora had chosen to go roller blading through the great parks of Tokyo.  
"It's not that bad Joe." Matt tried to convince him.  
"I think I'm getting the hang of it." Joe admitted.  
"That's the spirit." TK told him.  
At that moment Sora and Mimi whisked by at a tremendous speed.  
"Then again, I do feel a bit inadequate." Joe continued, watching after them with envy.  
"Hey look. It's Tai and Kari." TK pointed. Sure enough the two were coming, Tai a bit shakily but Kari making up for her brother's clumsiness with her natural grace. The two of them pulled up, and spoke to Sora, who pulled up next to them.  
"I fail to see who enjoys this." Izzy remarked from the sidelines. "It's much more interesting to watch from the side and observe the bodies in motion." TK smiled at that. Sora had attended for Izzy to get involved with everyone else, but three accidents later she had agreed to let him walk alongside the other roller bladers.  
"I thought that after this we could go over to the ice cream parlor and the pizza place down the street." Sora skated by them, twirling in mid stance. "Then we could go down and play some tennis at the courts."  
"It's your day." Matt smiled at her, and she smiled back.  
"I think I'm starting to get seasick." Joe complained as Sora moved off.   
TK and Matt grinned at each other. "Same old Joe." They said as one.  
  
When the third man stopped by to watch the game the two players paused momentarily. From where they sat the sounds of children roller blading and running in the park below echoed loudly, coming up the grassy knoll with the gentle breeze.   
"Loremaster." The bald man acknowledged, not looking up from his game.  
The blond man just nodded, but made that motion count more than anything that could be said out loud. The Loremaster was a tall man with long, flowing black hair that shone in the sunlight, and what looked like a permanent scowl etched on his face.  
"Michael. Mort." He greeted them, looking curiously at the card placements and the pieces on the board. "I see you have quite an interesting game going on here."  
"Indeed." Michael, the blond one, refused to offer another comment.  
"Aren't you only supposed to have one queen?" The Loremaster asked Mort.  
Mort shrugged. "I traded it on the Magnus Silveradus move, in exchanged for the Golden Chalice of Llyr."  
"Fair trade." The Loremaster allowed with a shrug of his shoulders. "Still, I think that this pawn is too widely spaced." And with that his hand brushed over a piece that, a moment ago, had simply not been standing there.  
"And vulnerable." Mort conceded. "And the third player prepares to take advantage of this."  
The Loremaster shrugged and went back to watching the children below.  
  
"Come on Tai! We can get to the pizza place on these." Joe managed to shoot by his faltering companion. He was doing much better now. Tai grumbled again as TK, Davis and Kari whisked past him, nodding at him as they went. He was now definitely feeling unhappy, but refused to reveal that particular feeling.  
"After me everyone!" Sora yelled, leading the pack across the street, with Tai straggling behind. It was only when he was halfway across the street when he became aware of something wrong.  
  
"A dark cloud hangs over this game." Mort remarked after a moment studying the board. "And the pawns move with a mind and will of their own."  
"So it goes." Michael remarked.  
The Loremaster said nothing.  
"I see that attack." Mort pointed at a figure.  
"And the trade." Michael responded absently. He was holding a new piece in his fingers absently.  
  
Tai could see the driver of the car clearly. The man was fumbling around with something on his dashboard. He was not watching the road. He could not see Tai.  
While he stood in terrified silence there was a sudden rush of movement from one side. Kari zoomed up and shoved him suddenly, sending him tumbling on unsteady legs backward. For a moment he stared at the sky, confused, and then his gaze lit on his little sister, who was now motionless in the crosswalk, stranded in the path of the oncoming car. For a moment they exchanged glances of shock, horror and sorrow before the world went white.  
  
"I see no move for you." Mort noticed.  
"I fear the influence of the third player." Michael responded, still turning his fingers around themselves almost randomly. "I fear he interferes too far." Now his gaze sharpened.  
"Perhaps." The Loremaster admitted. He gave a tight lipped smile which Mort returned in kind. Then his gaze turned and he pointed to a bird hovering high above the city. "Look at that, will you?"  
Mort winked cheekily at Michael, and then turned to gaze at the high-flying bird.  
Michael smiled gratefully at both of them, and then seemed to swell up, a bright light breaking free from his back  
  
Nobody remembered clearly what happened next.  
Izzy remembered something big and white. Mimi swore it had blue trim. Ken, who was doing a stint in art history said it looked like Winged Victory, fixed yet dynamic. Matt said it was like watching a waterfall, hypnotized by the falling water, whereas Cody compared it to the purity of a Haiku in motion. TK, perhaps most telling of all, said nothing, merely staring at the sky when the subject was brought up with a light in his eyes that no camera could ever capture.  
Others saw things too. A crossing guard down the street said he saw a thunderbolt reach down from the sky. A cashier at a store in the other direction swore that she saw something from the store's valentine decorations come to life. An artist in the park claimed that he had finally met something that could never be put on canvas. An office worker saw a bright light. An elderly woman who wasn't quite sure what the holdup in traffic was said she saw pigeons. The young man on the bench nearby claimed to have seen a series of flying pink elephants, but he was already halfway through his second bottle of sake, and should probably be ignored.  
All Tai and Kari could later remember was a set of blue eyes framed in whiteness, startling lakes of blue in a sea of silver fire. They never needed to remember anything else.  
  
Mort and the Loremaster turned back around to find the board in a different position than it had been.   
"Well," Mort began with exaggerated care. "I see that your pawn has managed to rescue herself."  
"Indeed." The Loremaster offered no further comment. His smile spoke more than he needed to.  
"You don't suppose he moved a piece on the board manually. Breaking the Law." Mort suggested, feigning shock with wide eyes.  
"I saw nothing." The Loremaster responded, in a tone that indicated that this was his final word on the subject.  
"Ahgood. I think the powers of darkness are a little put out though." Mort turned back. "Too bad she got away. Ah well, sooner or later all mortals enter the reach of my blade."  
"They may do much first." Michael replied, turning over another card and placing it on the board. "Change a destiny perhaps? Alter the fate of a world maybe? Do you know what the future holds? Who knows what may happen next."  
"Archangel, I fear that the events you change are larger than any have a right to control. But should any have a right, you are they." The Loremaster stood straighter. "I believe there is nothing more my continued presence can add to your contest. May good fortune favor you both." And then he was walking away, long strides eating up the ground beneath him, until his image faded and vanished.  
"Death old friend, I fear that we may have begun a game greater than either of us." Michael sat back in his chair.  
"Do you have a choice?" Mort asked him.  
Michael gave him a tight-lipped smile that had no humor in it, and pointed to a single piece on the board. "Mageddon is coming."  



End file.
